Southwest Splendor!

Greetings!

We are in Flagstaff AZ and heading to Albuquerque tomorrow for the Balloon Fiesta - our second year and this time with 144 other Airstreams!  But I digress . . .  due to Hurricane Polo and all of the disruptive weather in the Pacific, this area has seen a few days of rain, so what a perfect opportunity to post about our time in Monument Valley, Page (AZ), and Flagstaff before we trek east.

When last we posted, we ended our time in Mesa Verde National Park and started working our way southwest to Monument Valley and Arizona.  The 2.5 hour drive to Monument Valley was stunning and we passed the Four Corners Monument on route so of course we had to stop.  This area is where the four states of Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona all meet.  For $10 pp, you too can visit!  We were there about 10-minutes, but it was worth a good photo op or two! 

As we got closer to Monument Valley, the scenery became even more beautiful.

A random wild horse along the road  . . . 

As we got close to Monument Valley, you started seeing more red in the landscape

Our first taste of Monument Valley was Forest Gump Point, which is the location of the scene in the movie where he stops his 3-year run and decides to go home.  It is a beautiful area and your first real view of the monuments.  However, there were people pulled over everywhere trying to get that photo in the middle of the road - it was a little crazy!

You can see the people in the road trying to get "the shot."

We then arrived at our campground - Goulding's - which has a cool history.  Harry and Leone Goulding arrived in Monument Valley in the early 1920s buying 640 acres of land and opening a modest trading post to trade goods with the local Navajo community.  During the Great Depression, the area was really suffering, so Harry drove to Hollywood with a portfolio of landscape photographs to pitch Monument Valley as a movie backdrop.  He met with director John Ford, leading to the filming of the 1939 classic Stagecoach starring John Wayne, which permanently tied the region to Western cinema.  This started bringing great interest to the area and Goulding's expanded from a simple trading post to a full service resort - including a lodge, a great restaurant where we had lunch, and the campground we stayed in.  The entire resort complex is owned and operated by the Navajo Nation, along with the Monument Valley Visitor Center.

After lunch at Goulding's - we took this photo just out front with the beautiful landscape in the distance.

At the Visitor Center - John Wayne loved this area and they named a Point after him.  The filming of Stagecoach was a huge turning point for this area.

At the Visitor Center

We then headed out for a drive and Paul pulled out the drone - I took this photo as I loved the orange flowering bush!!

The drone does take some great photos!

Back at the campground - this was the view from the end of our row.

The campground was in a valley surrounded by beautiful red rock cliffs

A beautiful moon rise from outside the Airstream

The next morning, we took a short hike that goes right from the campground.  This trail is only available for guests of the campground and the "hidden arch" was so beautiful, along with all the views and vistas of the campground and the valley.

Looking back at the campground nestled in the valley

The hidden arch!

The color and formation of the cliffs were awesome

Voila - the monuments in the distance

Returning to the campground - this gives you a good perspective of its great location.

A beautiful morning - now time to hit the road.

After one night in Monument Valley, we continued our journey southwest to Page, Arizona.  Although much of Monument Valley is in Arizona, our campsite at Goulding's was technically in Utah.  As Arizona doesn't observe Daylights Savings Time, we went back and forth over time zone changes a few times while driving around!  Once in Page and Flagstaff, we were in Mountain Standard Time (3 hours before the East Coast).

Our initial plan on this day was to head to the Grand Canyon National Park and stay for a week.  Due to the flash flooding and damage to the water system that occurred in August at the RV park, our reservation was cancelled a few weeks earlier.  On to Plan B - 3 nights in Page, AZ and 5 nights in Flagstaff, AZ - which ended up being a perfect plan.  Page ended up on our radar thanks to our friend Maddy who visited it last month as part of a tour and the photos were so stunning of the Antelope canyons - we just had to visit!  And as you will soon see, we absolutely loved it.  Thank you Maddy!

The drive to Page was about 2 hours and the scenery continued to be beautiful and interesting.  

We arrived at our campground - Antelope Point RV Park & Marina located on Lake Powell. The RV Park was relatively new and it was a short walk to a beautiful marina complex with boat rentals, cruises, a great restaurant, and a HUGE marina filled with enormous house boats!  After a delicious lunch in the restaurant, we walked the docks and were blown away by the number and the size of the boats!  Some of the boats were over 100 feet long.  They are built very differently than ocean boats as they never have to deal with large waves.  Some of them are built to a very high luxury standard and are very pricy.   

Many of the boats had slides - FUN!

Lots of toys on the backs of many boats!

Incredible!

Many of the house boats were privately owned, but there was also a fleet where you could buy a timeshare and rent one week a year.  The other fascinating thing about this marina is that the water levels are always fluctuating and were much lower than when the marina was first built.  To get from the main building down to the marina complex, you had to take a golf cart shuttle down several hundred feet.  In the above photos, you can see the surrounding cliffs.

Our campsite was lovely and we enjoyed beautiful sunsets on each evening - a really magical area.

The highlight of our time in Page was doing a secret Antelope Canyon tour.  There are also Lower and Upper Antelope Canyons and all require a guided tour - you can't just visit them on your own.  Thanks to Maddy, she let us know about a tour company - Deer Springs Tours - that offers tours on private land.  It is a family run business and the family is 5th generation Navajo and owns 30,000 acres in the area and the canyon we walked through was breathtaking as you'll see by the photos below.  Our guide Trey was the son of the owner and said he used to play in this Canyon when he was little - can you imagine?  It was about a 30-minute ride on dirt roads through a mesa and it brought us to a truly magical place. 

This was taken at the end of the Canyon - after this photo was taken, we turned around and walked back through.

Almost back at the vehicle - what a special place

After the Canyon, the guide took us to Horseshoe Bend, which is a stunning, deep-horseshoe shaped curve carved by the Colorado River.  There is a public overview of this, but the guide took us to a special place owned by the family where we could view this spectacular site without the crowds.  Horseshoe bend is below the Glen Canyon Dam.

After the tour, we grabbed a delicious lunch in town and then headed to another fascinating site in Page - the Glen Canyon Dam.  You know how we love our dams and this one was pretty darn fabulous and very interesting.  It is a 710-foot high concrete arch-gravity dam built by the US Bureau of Reclamation between 1956 and 1966.  It creates Lake Powell, the second-largest man-made reservoir in the US and serves as a central hub for water management, flood control and hydroelectric power generation in the western US.  It was built due to the tremendous increase in population in the western US after World War 2 and it also established Page, named after John C. Page, a former commissioner of the Bureau of Reclamation.  The site was secured via a land exchange with the Navajo Nation and following completion of the dam and the rise of Lake Powell tourism, the settlement transitioned into a permanent community and was officially incorporated as a city in 1975.  Bottom line - Page was born with the creation of the Glen Canyon Dam - cool.

The bridge was built as soon as production of the dam started.  In order to get supplies from one side of the Canyon to the other, it took over 3 hours driving before the bridge was completed.

We walked across the bridge and the builders conveniently built in little "windows" you could use to take photos of this amazing site.

This is what was taken by Paul in the photo above!

Taken from the other side of the bridge

On the other side of the dam (south) is the Colorado River

You can see the wires and towers filled with the electricity produced by the dam

The round building is the Visitor Center, which was really well done - great exhibits and a movie showing the creation / building of the dam.  We love Visitor Centers.

After the dam, we headed a little further north and checked out another marina on Lake Powell - Wahweap.  This is the oldest marina on the lake (and also the one closest to the dam) and the water levels here are much lower than at Antelope Point.  

From an overlook, you can see the large House Boats that push their bows to the shore and then throw out multiple anchors off the stern when people are using them.

This is a good-sized marina too, but not as nice as Antelope Point.

There is a beautiful overlook that looks back over the dam and bridge - such beautiful landscape

The next day, we ventured on a cruise of Antelope Canyon on Lake Powell that left from our marina - it was so enjoyable.  We had a great captain and only 6 other people on board, so it was almost like a private tour!

Our Captain Warren was telling us that once the dam opened, it created 96 canyons on Lake Powell.  As a long-time charter captain, he said he has been in about 70 of them.  Although there has been a lot of press regarding to lack of water in the Colorado River System, the captain told us that the lake can rise very quickly when there is a big snow pack in the Rockies.  He said one recent year that the lake rose 65 feet in just a few months.  Hopefully this El Nino year will help the lake level as they sure could use it.  During our visit  the lake was down 183 feet.

The further we went in, the taller the canyon walls became - it was really beautiful.  A very different experience than hiking through a canyon as we did the day before.

Lots of people were kayaking in the canyon 

After 3 nights and 2 glorious days, it was time to leave Page - we really did just love it here - what a neat small city in the middle of a very rural area with so many cool things to see and do!  Our next stop was Flagstaff for 5 nights.  Flagstaff is a great city and we spent most of our time relaxing and resetting for the next leg of our trip.  Our campground is only 5 months old and it's an urban campground - located right on Route 66!  We are 1 mile from downtown and within 2-3 miles of every store you can imagine, so we were able to get lots of errands accomplished and also some relaxing too.

Once again - the drive was so pretty

We did go on a few hikes in close proximity to the campground with beautiful mesas and mountain views.

The San Francisco mountain range is so pretty and you can see it from many parts of Flagstaff.

Beautiful wildflowers were abundant

We loved the campground - everything was so new and the facilities were clean and the staff was terrific.

Grilling dinner as the full moon rose in the sky.  Then the next day it started to rain!

We have so enjoyed our time here in Flagstaff - it's a really cool city and reminds us quite a bit of Bend - lots of beautiful things to do outdoors, breweries, great restaurants, and a great vibe overall.

Tomorrow - we head to Albuquerque for the Balloon Fiesta and are excited for our second year attending.  Last year we went on our own and this year, we are going as part of an Airstream Rally where there will be a total of 145 Airstreams there.  We are excited to see people we know and also make new friends!  Will post again after the Fiesta with a full recap.

We are so blessed and grateful to have your love and support.  Thanks for following along!  Love, Jen & Paul